Electronic article surveillance (“EAS”) systems are commonly used in retail stores and other settings to prevent the unauthorized removal of goods from a protected area. Typically, a detection system is configured at an exit from the protected area, which comprises one or more transmitters and antennas (“pedestals”) capable of generating an electromagnetic field across the exit, known as the “interrogation zone.” Articles to be protected are tagged with an EAS marker that, when active, generates a response signal when passed through this interrogation zone. An antenna and receiver in the same or another “pedestal” detects this response signal and generates an alarm. Certain EAS tags, commonly known as “alarming” tags, include a processor and audible alarm transducer within the actual tag device. Thus, the actual tag “knows” when it has been interrogated by an EAS portal and emits an audible alert when triggered.
Irrespective of the specific type of EAS tag in use, EAS tags often include a power supply, such as a battery, that powers the internal components of the tag for use. Indeed, tags often include a battery or similar power supply that is permanently fixed within the tag itself to prevent shoplifters or other persons from removing or tampering with it. Such removal or tampering would render the tag inoperable, thus defeating it as a security measure. Although in practice, EAS tags are typically removed from an article upon purchase and subsequently stored for reuse on subsequent goods, a tag's ability to be reused may be undesirably limited by the life of the permanently affixed power supply. This limiting characteristic may thus result in the inability to effectively use a tag for a lengthy period of time, instead resulting in discarded tags replaced by ones with fresh power supplies, thereby increasing the overall cost of securing one's goods. For EAS tags including replaceable batteries or similar power supplies prolonging the use of the tags, such batteries may be made easily accessible to retail personnel in order to facilitate rapid and simplistic changing of the batteries. As a consequence though, such accessibility lends itself to unauthorized tampering or removal of the battery and other internal components of the tag by unwanted persons, such as shoplifters. This unwanted accessibility by unauthorized persons can compromise the operation of the tag, thus defeating its effectiveness as a security device.
Therefore, what is needed is an EAS tag having a replaceable power supply whose access is securely limited to desired personnel while remaining inhibitive to tampering or removal by unwanted persons.